Yes, they were, back then. Back in the day when the North-South and East-West line were built (mid 80s) Conrac (today DATA MODUL) was really big in manufacturing plasma screens for airports, etc. in Germany. Pretty sure they are replaced with LCD today though.
Steven Hassan, who developed the BITE model, is really missing on that list. You're absolutely correct, not everything that checks the boxes of the model necessarily is a cult, but more often than not it's only a small step to transform into one.
Hassan’s own account of being recruited into the Moonies while he was in college really highlights an important point too, almost anybody can fall into a cult. They prey on nearly universal human traits. I wish we had an effort to equip everyone with this knowledge in the same way we teach kids to stop, drop, and roll if they ever catch fire. Especially in our hyper-connected age where anyone with an internet connection might be exposed to a cult.
There should also be training on how to avoid scams. They have gotten so common on the internet and it is easy for anyone to fall for greed or fear. I wonder if being wary about scams would help with cults.
The guy still has like ~35% approval ratings according to every poll there is, and that’s after weekly displays of outright corruption from him and his family, and “winning” the same war dozens of times already with no end in sight. The number hardly even budged YTD.
You’re telling me that this country is capable of learning?
Yeah but you can get 30% of people to support almost anything once you get them hooked. Some people are always going to be dumb or too stubborn to ever admit they were wrong.
I don't think most polling qualifies as statistics, without providing info like selection criteria or number of respondents. Otherwise we'll walk right into another situation like when Trump won an election while polling in near last place.
Or maybe I want something a little more significant than "we asked around the newsroom, and 35% of fox news reporters approve of the current administration". Cool, thanks, but that's not helpful or even a useful datapoint.
> I want something a little more significant than "we asked around the newsroom, and 35% of fox news reporters approve of the current administration". Cool, thanks, but that's not helpful or even a useful datapoint.
The state of the art (which confirms this ~35% approval number) is far more rigorous than that.
We'll see if that's true come the midterms. I have doubts Republicans can keep enough seats with that sort of approval, given it's much worse with independents, and the Republican candidates seem to be a lot weaker than their Democratic opponents in a number of key races, like Texas. Only thing I'm less sure of is the huge amount of Super PAC money Republicans have to spend on tight races.
It is lowest in history in this point of presidency apart from Nixon, who resigned at this point. That 30-35% is the floor, which won’t budge, likely because the hard core Maga Republicans have nowhere to go in US two-party system - which would be not just a surrender of long-held political beliefs, but a complete social death as well. This does not mean that the core Maga is very happy either, but they hope the movement continues after Trump so they can finally get the full Christian Nationalist Fascism they so desire.
I doubt that is going to happen. Trump is going keep the strings behind the party, fucking everybody hard, until finally he dies or otherwise implodes. What is left of American democracy when that happens is a whole another thing.
If you wanted a Russian puppet in the oval office, it would do exactly what Epstein's BFF Donald is doing. There are zero reasons to support anything Putin is doing (read: daily war crimes), however, the destruction from within in the US and EU is executed amazingly well.
The 65 percent approval rating from GOP voters right now says no, they are happy with immigration, culture war nonsense and trade chaos. Red states and rural areas would need to be targeted specifically and even then all interviews indicate those voters won’t consider choosing the other side, most of that GOP opposition will at best just not vote.
That’s good news to hear but the analysis in that article points out that many of these are people who supported Trump the third time(possibly in a row), after the rape trial finished and all the evidence of the first Trump term - maybe can’t put them all in the same bin but independent voters in the USA are not into long term thinking from all appearances, a slight decrease in gas prices would sway them the other way.
I understand how you feel I think you have to consider the lack of long term thinking is likely uniformly distributed among voters. Or said differently, if I read between the lines of what you're saying, I don't think dems are more capable of long term thinking. And even if they were, their failure modes are just as plentiful. Dems have failed to put forth a decent candidate in ages.
It has no effect on me but the fact that residents of DC and Puerto Rico have to pay income tax but get no vote of consequence (and small less populated states have so much power) is one big example of inequities baked into system that I just groan when people brag about American exceptionalism.
If you understand isolationism with consistent non intervenism, then swiss has done pretty well. If you understand it as really shutting yourself off from the outside world with literally destroying bridges - then North Korea is not doing so well.
> It’s the people that are the problem. These policies and politics will outcast Trump because middle Anerica and The South are filled with morons.
What a sad and tired take. Trump won both the electoral and popular vote. Discounting the opinions of over half the country as morons is exactly the type of behavior that got him elected.
> Discounting the opinions of over half the country as morons is exactly the type of behavior that got him elected.
This is the exactly the same sad, tired take one hears from republicans whenever you disagree with them on any issue. Pick a random issue, you'll find a republican claiming "this is why donald won" etc.
How have elections been going for donald and the GOP since then? How about approval ratings? Seems like it's way less than half the country now. Less than a third, even. We The People are speaking, let's listen. After all, ignoring Americans is exactly the behavior that caused the GOP to lose elections and the people's approval.
Trump believes everything on this planet is zero sum, and the only way you can benefit is if the other party hurts. His entire history on this planet betrays this, where he is an unreliable scumbag to everyone he has ever dealt with, to the point where the guy couldn't find vendors or a bank outside of Russia to deal with him. And then Americans said "this is the guy we should put in charge".
It is a particularly interesting position when the US is trying to counter China. The only hope the US had was an alliances with other Western-style nations, but instead it has been nothing but attacks and diminishing.
> It is a particularly interesting position when the US is trying to counter China.
The US put countering China way behind on its priority list, below "owning the libs" and settling old scores. I am convinced that if the Iran decapitation had worked like Venezuela, which seems to have been what they expected, then Cuba would have been next.
I am surprised the USA has not attacked Cuba yet. I am guessing the rundown on missile stocks has eliminated the possibility of a 100 percent air/navy campaign like they failed at in Iran.
They've been farming the Cuba thing since the boomers were children. Every election there are bitter Floridian descendants of Cuban exiles to court. It would be insane for them to permanently resolve the issue, and any actual resolution would inevitably be a disappointment to them.
Exactly. Cuba is a pain in the US politics since generations now. If Trump would solve it, that would boost him. But if it fails, with declared victory but significant partisan warfare afterwards - not so much.
Attacking one of Russia's few allies and weapon suppliers is counterproductive to such a goal, even if higher oil prices also help the Russian state finances.
This ill-conceived, Kegsbreath-run operation depleted weapons stocks, gave enormous levels of intel on its systems (which both Russia and China are loving), burned through hundreds of billions in spend, and made Ameirca look like an impotent pathetic joke.
Yes, the Iran operation 100% served Russia and China. It could not have gone better for them.
And of course it helped Russia make hundreds of billions more on oil. Win win win.
Trump is the avatar of a segment of Americans that believe that all transactions are zero sum at best. They simultaneously believe they're "pro-capitalism."
How are those two things squared? Capitalism to these people isn't about free markets, it's about privatized gains and socialized losses.
The proof is trying to tell their solutions apart from socialism:
- when the executive branch owns 11% of Intel. Can I get in line for them to buy 11% of my company, cash?
- when “maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls” can come from both Trump and Sanders, about the government manipulating consumer choices.
What a bizarre comment. You seem to suffer some hysterical Trump derangement syndrome.
I'm describing Trump's entire lifetime of actions, and it requires no reading of minds. He is famous for stiffing contractors and constantly changing the "terms" after other parties have delivered on their end of the bargain. It's why this rugpull barking clown grifter -- man, his act actually words on some hilariously stupid people -- failed in almost everything he ever did, and was only lifted by the lifts all boats of NY real estate.
Trump is a pedophile rapist, is incredibly stupid, and by all evidence he is an utterly garbage human (the guy and his family stole from a charity. Jesus would hate that man, or anyone so vile they would support him). That he still has weird cultists like you is amazing.
Like, do you guys not realize he has failed catastrophically at everything? Hey, remember when the economy was going to take off like a rocketship in the Q4 of 2025? LOL, that did not happen, and things have turned from bad to worse. Remember that the deficit would be eliminated, and hell it'll pay off the debt too! ROFL. $40 trillion. Debt rates spiralling, and things are looking dire. Now they're trying to make lemonade out of lemons and are talking up how great it'll be to no longer be the reserve currency...which, rofl. Enjoy being a fallen shithole.
Cool beans, buddy.
You guys are bizarre. It's like you've constructed some profoundly stupid delusion about this festering, rotten bag of shit.
No one has been humiliated by Trump. We did underestimate just how many incredibly stupid, vile, hateful, racist pieces of shit live in America, and how far it has fallen.
You're not going to get free trade if it's unilateral, because you've then created an incentive for the other side to protect their own industries knowing you're not going to retaliate, while reaping the benefits of access to your market.
Unilaterally not hitting you head against the wall is bad, because you remove the incentive for the other side to stop hitting their head against a wall?
> while reaping the benefits of access to your market.
Huh, what? Trade is a win-win situation: you and your people benefit from imports, too.
Your analogy is flawed, because there is no benefit to hitting your head against the wall, but your domestic businesses benefit from reduced competition.
And that also answers your second objection - if governments never gave preference to business interests over people, the world would look very different.
The trade bazooka was an empty threat. This is somewhat similar to the trillion dollar coin[1]. It's a tool used for negotiations, not a real thing. If the trade bazooka was real, wasn't this the best opportunity to use it? What else could it be saved for?
Even with credits or tokens or whatever, it's not completely trivial to find the spot where you can accept customers payments in advance and not be subject to financial regulatory frameworks.
Absolutely agree. I imagine it almost all scenarios it gets tricky and at the very least puts a good bit of burden on the company to define that with regulatory frameworks.
Which is a good thing. While it may seem strange to regulate these things for good faith actors, it's obvious why it's a great when thinking about bad faith actors.
Vance is far shrewder than many of the surrounding idiots. My guess is that he went because someone like Trump thought it a good idea, and kissing arse is Vance’s current strategy.
Well its the only winning strategy currently, thats for sure.
But good for us, more visits of these folks who have very negative image in rest of the world. Any corrupt entrenched a-hole would be nice, what about Fico in Slovakia? Orban's best buddy in mindset and methodologies. Next one is Babis in Czech republic. With that done, EU would be free from corrupt russian double agents, for now at least.
For internal apps, you could go through ADEP [1] if you want to avoid the app store + review + custom apps route. But eligibility requriements have been tightened over the years IIRC.
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